Japanese volume about Diana Abgar
Tokyo’s Fujiwara Shoten publishing house has released the Japanese-language work by Meline Mesropyan and Arisa Ohta, “The Diaspora Living in Japan: Diana Abgar and the Armenian Genocide.”This is the first work in Japanese about Diana Abgar (1859–1937), the Japan-based businesswoman, publicist, philanthropist, and Honorary Consul of Armenia in Japan.
As Meline Mesropyan noted in her Facebook post: “In 2012, when I began this study, there was almost no scholarly literature on Diana Abgar’s life in Japan.” There were almost no articles at all, and among the few that existed, it was Artsvi Bakhchinyan’s work that became the foundation on which I began to build my own research. I was also fortunate to meet the Japanese researcher Hideharu Nakajima, who had discovered Diana Abgar’s grave in Yokohama many years ago. He was one of the first in Japan to write about her. At a time when I was just starting, he generously shared his materials, observations, and interest. Another important contributor was Shinji Shigematsu, whose studies on “Abgar & Co.” helped shed light on the presence of Armenian merchants in Yokohama and the details of the Abgar family’s business.
The book’s foreword was written by Hrant Poghosyan, the first ambassador of the Republic of Armenia to Japan, followed by the “Preface” and the “Introduction” (“The Illusion of Being the World’s First Female Consul”). Their joint work is an important contribution to the small body of literature dedicated to Armenian–Japanese relations.
The work is composed of five chapters and their corresponding subheadings: “The Armenian Diaspora” (“Armenia: A Three-Thousand-Year History,” “From Diana’s Birth to Her Marriage”) “To a New World — Japan” (“Civilized Yokohama,” “Women Take Action,” “The Russo-Japanese War and the Strength of a Small Nation”) “Prophecies of Massacre and Abgar’s Warnings (1906–1914)” (“Moving Twice,” “Until Death: Dedication to Literary Work,” “The Gradually Approaching Malevolent Shadow,” “On the Eve of Genocide”) “As a Protector of Refugees” (“The Armenian Genocide,” “The Arrival of Refugees and Diana’s Tireless Efforts,” “Shattered Hopes”) “Overcoming Regret” (“The Disappearing ‘Homeland’: The First Republic of Armenia,” “Continuing Life as an Honorary Consul”) The book concludes with a “Conclusion,” “Postscript,” “Acknowledgments,” and a bibliography, as well as a chronology related to the book (1854–1937), Diana’s family tree, a list of major newspapers and journals, and a list of important figures mentioned in the text.
Meline Mesropyan teaches at several universities in the Kansai region of Japan and is also a researcher at the International Cultural Studies Department of Tohoku University. Arisa Ohta is a journalist. Their joint work is an important contribution to the small body of literature dedicated to Armenian–Japanese relations.
the material is taken from azg.am
